1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to medical devices, and, more particularly, to a biopsy device having rotational cutting.
2. Description of the Related Art
A typical biopsy device includes a probe assembly having a cannula configured with a sample notch and a tissue sampling chamber and associated tissue cutting mechanism. During a biopsy procedure, vacuum assistance may be used to help draw tissue through the sample notch and into the sampling chamber and maximize the amount of tissue obtained with each sample. Some biopsy devices, commonly referred to as single insertion, multiple samples, or SIMS devices, utilize sample acquisition and delivery mechanisms that allow multiple samples to be acquired from a given lesion without removing and reinserting the needle after each sample. One type of cutting mechanism used in a vacuum assisted SIMS biopsy device uses rotational and linear motion of a cutter with respect to the sample notch to sever the tissue drawn through the sample notch into the tissue sampling chamber. Vacuum is applied to transport the tissue from the sampling chamber to a sample collection basket. This process may be repeated until the desired amount of tissue has been obtained.
In one common SIMS biopsy device, it is necessary for an operator to manually rotate the probe assembly to different orientations after each sample in order to obtain tissue samples at different radial orientations within the target site. However, in some situations, such manual rotation may be inconvenient.